Do you have your stream yet? If you ordered one through Trax you should have gotten a notecard from Bones that has the stream details. Click on your inventory to find it – first click on the inventory tab to open the inventory interface, then on the suitcase-shaped icon. Browse to a folder called “notecards” or enter the word “trax” into the blank space at the top of your inventory tab. The notecard should show up as a result.

Even if you don’t yet have your stream sorted, the step of buying an instrument and animations can be taken while you wait.

1) Instruments:

There are many places to go to find musicial instruments and if time is not limited you can just type “musical instrument” or “guitar” or “piano” into the search at the top right hand side of the screen, then click on a result that seems likely to teleport there. A one-stop option is GCD Musical Instruments which sells instruments that have their own animations.  Clicking on it now will get you prompted to log into SL, and then take you there.

Have a look around. The store is huge and many of the instruments are up high. You can either tilt your view by holding down the “alt” tab and moving your mouse to adjust your avatars perspective, or you can fly up to look. Want to fly? On the bottom middle of the screen is a button that says “move”. The icon with the outstretched arms will make you fly. You can use the underlined “up” arrow to increase your altitude.

To buy an item, right click and hit “pay”. The item will then be transferred into your inventory. You can retrieve it by clicking the inventory button, then clicking on the suitcase shaped icon, and then on the “recent items” tab at the top. The instrument should be in there. You can right click on it and select “wear” and it will appear on your avatar. To take it off, right click on the instrument itself and click “detatch”.

Caveats: some instruments, depending where you buy, come packaged. You will notice this because when you click “wear” you will appear to be wearing a box. Boxes need to be unpacked before you can wear the contents, so right click on the box and select “detatch” to return it to your inventory. Locate it again inside your inventory, left click on it, and drag in onto a space on the floor in front of your avatar. The box should not appear on the floor. Click on it (or right click) and it should give you the option “unpack”. Click on that, and the individual items should be unpacked into your inventory. You should then click on the box again and select “take” to remove it from the floor. Check your inventory, suitcase, recent items again and you should see individual items there.

The box won’t appear when you drag it to the floor?  Sometimes you will get a notice that says “you canot rez items here” or similar. This is a pain, but there is a way around it: you need to teleport to a place where rezzing is allowed. One such place is Bentham Forest, a haunted forest with wonderful sounds that allows you to rez objects. Teleport there, move off the landing area and find a clear space on the ground to repeat the above steps.

2) Animations:

Your guitar, bass, piano or drums may come with animations. Many do. When you wear your instrument you will notice as it will animate your avatar. You can right click on the instrument itself to see the animation options. One of the options is always “stop” and there are usually other animations in the list to choose from. If you are happy with them then all is good. If not, you need to teleport over to Ministry of Motion and find an animation. Again, the place is huge, and it takes a while for the visuals to load, but once it does you should see big signs hanging in the air to guide you. The circular mini-stages allow you to try out the animations. To use them, right click on the mini-stage and select “sit here”.

If you like an animation, again, just right click on the animation name and select “buy”. It will be transferred to your inventory. To find it click on the suitcase icon, then browse to the “animations” folder. To use it, double click on the name and it will open a small grey window to the top right of your screen that has two buttons, “play inworld” and “play locally”. One of these will animate your avatar.

Caveat: the animations are heavily and rather ridicuously gendered. It can take a long time to find one that isn’t insipidly feminine or overbearingly macho. Have patience, or the courage to just go for one not intended for your gender. It’s a virtual universe and the polarization of the sexes is an unneccesary evil!

Part 4 will be about places to play shows and the pros and cons of approaching venue owners.

‘Til then!